If we could see all the years of our lives encapsulated in one space and time, would it not resemble both a yo-yo and a carrousel? Delete the yo-yo: still, we would see the merry-go-round of life with its wooden horses rising and falling: consistently moving up and down and around.

The only change to see, as time rapidly passes before our eyes, would be a gradual slowing, and inevitable stopping, of our carrousel: so we could disembark what once was thought to be such a thrilling ride.

Reflect, for a moment, on your life: from beginning of memory. Remember being an infant aloft, lifted up high then warmly cradled in secure parental arms? Or perhaps, being punished for disobedience or, worse, abused?

Our carrousel turns: beautiful wooden horses rise to excitedly enter school. Horses lower to greet other children who bully, taunt, haunt; then, it rises again to meet a best friend: one who stays nearby through each spinning drop of our yo-yo— to pull it back up for us, because we struggle to rise from the end of a taut, slippery string.

Our carrousel turns yet again, horses lower to find not quite an adult yet not a child: a feeling of dismay to learn we don't belong in either world; our carrousel turning ever so slowly to a seemingly magical age of twenty-one.

Suddenly, horses rise to kiss the face of first love and, immediately, once again this ride is exciting. Yet, the yo-yo effect now is spinning rapidly, often jerking cruelly— excitement! Ah, but, a first argument, make up, then confusion, a decision.

All at once our carrousel has spun around to find marriage— perhaps with children; yet, this carrousel continues to turn, wooden horses still rise and lower: the yo-yo string either taut, dangling us precariously at its end or, miraculously, securely wrapped around us.

It never seems to change; at least, until awakened one morning to find a mirrored reflection only just resembling us, the us of our youth. At once, we realize our carrousel is turning quite slowly, horses rising and falling ever so gently now.

Yes! We finally have made it: discovered each fall's lesson, learned to enjoy the moment of each exhilarating flight aloft. But, most of all, we figured out how to cope with life's yo-yo carrousel; instinctively realizing we never would have risen had we not first fallen, nor fallen had we not risen.

What would our life be had the carrousel never turned; those beautifully painted, wooden horses never gone up and down? Would we have lived? Learned? Loved? Does this not show us how trivial it all was, after all? That we need not have put up such a screaming, kicking fuss: because we could not have stopped the spinning rise and fall, anyway? Would we really have wanted to stop it— in reflection?

Each rise and fall, good and bad. Is it not what creates our strengths and eliminates our weaknesses? If we so choose? Indeed.